Meet the V's

A long conversation with the Balding Successor on life, the universe and everything earlier today left me at my pensive best. As I set about the task of setting right the many wrongs of the world, I couldn’t help but wonder how much lovelier a place the world would be if I’d inherited more from my kin than my family’s trademark wavy hair and a double chin. For over a decade now, the M family has marvelled in unison at how a ToI-reading cynic was born into a perfectly perfect TamBram family such as theirs. To be fair though, the feeling is mutual. My idea of a day well-spent is one with at least hundred miles between me and the nearest kinsman. Exceptions do exist, of course, in the form of my brother, my parents and a smattering of cousins, uncles and aunts from here and there.

I have always had a soft corner for Sister V, though. For one thing, she makes the best vengaaya sambar this side of the Vindyas. For another, the V’s are officially my guardians for my stay at R-Land. As rosy as it might all seem, setting off for their abode in Mayur Vihar Phase-1 is hardly the lovey-dovey homecoming it might seem. Nothing comes easy in life- and certainly not vengaaya sambar.

I have not seen a leech till date and hope I never do. When people narrate their encounters with the horrid creature, I try to picture the person in the V’s living room longingly eyeing the door. The V’s have an uncanny sense of hospitality, you see. No one is allowed to leave their abode until he/she is left gasping for freedom. Pleas, excuses, alibis and lies are all nonchalantly dismissed by Old Man V, capped off with one of his trademark apothegms. “Chandni Chowk is no longer the place it once was.” “Birthday parties are for toddlers.” “Weddings are for 30 year olds.” “Movies are for retards.” I once even claimed I wanted to visit the local temple only to be told by Old man V that temples in the North weren’t worth visiting, before setting off on his own version of the Canterbury Tales.

After delaying the inevitable for a month, I finally gave in and promised Sister V that I’d join them for dinner tonight. Reluctantly, I stand outside the Sector 19 telephone Exchange patiently awaiting the arrival of my beloved 323. I find I'm so agitated, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the agitation only an imprisoned man can feel, an imprisoned man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I don’t make it across the border. I hope Old Man V forgets that he even had a nephew named Dela. I hope the buildings in Mayur Vihar Phase-1 are yellower than they were in my nightmares. I hope.